


Creature Comfort

by frankiesin



Series: Say It With Neon [13]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Gen, Mikey is a Sad Man, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-16 17:58:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16500065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: Gee makes Mikey go to a recovery group. Mikey sees a familiar face.(MM17 universe)





	Creature Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this while going through some Shit, therefore it's Mikey POV and it's uh. Sad. Like, hella fuckin sad. The title is also referencing a song of the same name, and if you listen to it while reading this you will most likely make an "oof" noise because the song is also pretty fuckin sad. 
> 
> Anyway, here we go!

**July 15, 2013; Los Angeles, California.**

 

Mikey stood in front of the building. It didn’t look threatening, but he knew what was in there. It would be him and twenty-something other famous and fucked up people. This was Los Angeles. No one here was really functional. Unlike in Jersey, everyone here thought that they could be fixed. Mikey didn’t think he could be fixed. He’d started drinking at thirteen, smoking at sixteen, and taking pills at eighteen. He was almost thirty-three now. All of this was happening twenty years too late, and on a man who didn’t see the point in trying any more. 

 

Mikey wasn’t Gee. Gee had shit going for her, she always had. She was creative and brilliant and driven by a hero complex that Mikey had never truly understood. Mikey loved Gee the way a brother loved an older sister, but Mikey wasn’t like Gee. Mikey wasn’t talented or brilliant on his own, and he never had been. He didn’t see the point in any of this, but Gee had asked and Mike would do pretty much anything for her. Anything to try and not disappoint Gee again, even though that was all Mikey did these days.

 

Mikey was the reason there wasn’t a band anymore. Gee would never admit it, or never let Mikey admit it, but the breakup was his fault. He’d cheated on Alicia, he’d overdosed, he’d slept with some random guy and let Sarah find out. Mikey was the fucked up brother, the family disappointment. Gee’s wife didn’t even want to talk to Mikey. Lindsey had sided with Alicia and Mikey couldn’t blame her for it. He’d fucked up a lot, and he didn’t understand why Gee hadn’t given up on him yet. It didn’t matter that they were related. Mikey was a failure, a black tarnish on Gee’s family and on her own life. He’d been that his whole life too, and it was better for people to leave him behind and let him rot.

 

Gee wouldn’t leave him alone, though. Thus, Mikey had to go to recovery and try to be better. 

 

Mikey snuffed out his cigarette and pushed the door open. There were plenty of other abandoned cigarette butts scattered around the entrance. More proof that some people were just meant to be destroyed forever. Some people didn’t get better. That was the difference between Gee and Mikey, really. Gee believed in redemption arcs. Mikey didn’t. Mikey was more realistic that way, and he didn’t get emotionally crushed the way Gee did when she realised that someone couldn’t be saved. 

 

Gee thought there would be a happy ending. Mikey knew better. People leave him. He was too much for people. There was too much trauma, too many years of damage for anyone to put up with. Pete left because Mikey scared him off with reality, Gabe left because he knew Mikey was unloveable, and Alicia left because she realised that Mikey couldn’t love anything. He was a carcass. He was the empty shell of a man who could never truly be seen as a man, and no one could ever love him. There was nothing there to love. 

 

The door clicked behind him, and Mikey shivered. The building was well air-conditioned. It was also well lit, and it reminded Mikey eerily of his high school’s hallways. Everything was fluorescent, everything echoed, and Mikey could envision lockers leading him through the halls as he searched for the principal’s office. 

 

Mikey’s adolescence had been riddled with trips to principals and counselors. He wasn’t really a delinquent. People just didn’t know what to do with the dirty, chubby kid who always smelled like cigarettes and swore like a sailor. Mikey didn’t get into fights, but whenever kids picked on him he always talked back. He was friends with everyone, but no one stuck up for him when he needed them. No one but Gee.

 

Things would be easier if Gee was here. Gee was the leader, the one with drive and with purpose. Gee knew what she was doing, and all Mikey ever did was follow her. Mikey was Gee’s assistant, and had always been there for her in the background, acting as support.

 

Mikey didn’t know how to exist on his own. Back before they’d gotten divorced, when she was still trying to love him, Alicia had said that she often felt like she was married to Gee and not Mikey. That Mikey had changed and had taken on Gee’s personality and opinions and mannerisms, and that he had nothing of his own personality left to define himself with. Mikey was a shell of a person, and he’d become a carbon copy of his sister because people loved her more than they’d ever loved him.

 

Mikey didn’t blame Gee for any of that. There were some people who were inherently unlovable, and Mikey--when he was just Mikey--was one of those people. He was temporary to everyone but Gee, because no one else could understand what Mikey had been through the way Gee could. Their friendship was stronger than anything else Mikey had felt, and he could understand why some of their creepier fans had thought they were more that just siblings. It was disgusting, and Mikey couldn’t imagine his sister in a sexy way, but the two were pretty close. Most people didn’t get it. Or like it.

 

He stepped in front of the room. 613. Mikey shivered again. The number felt familiar, but he couldn’t place why he knew it. They were three random digits. They didn't have to mean anything if Mikey didn’t want them to. 

 

Mikey took a deep breath. There were already some people inside, but luckily Mikey didn’t recognise any of them. This group was for public figures, people who didn’t want the world to know that they’d fucked up beyond repair. Mikey hated it, but he knew he couldn’t walk into a random AA meeting. He needed the anonymity. He needed for everyone to be equally ashamed that they couldn’t keep their shit together. 

 

The room smelled like nicotine. Mikey could understand that. Everyone wanted to stop him from drinking and taking pills, but no one was worried about him smoking. Nicotine, in the grand scheme of things, was a non-issue.

 

No one looked at him. A few people looked up from their conversations and coffee, but no one acknowledged him. Mikey expected that. Most people who had heard of him didn’t like him. There were blogs and online forums online where people bashed the shit out of him. Mikey couldn’t argue with any of them. They were right. They had the facts and the timelines all correct. Mikey was the shit-stain younger brother. Gee had asked him why he hadn’t made a statement, or asked for the posts to be taken down. The truth was that Mikey didn’t  _ want _ anything taken down. Gee had protected Mikey for too long. Now it was time for the world to know the truth, that Mikey was an irredeemable asshole.

 

“Grab a chair,” a woman with long grey hair and full sleeves said. She motioned towards the back wall of the room. “And we’ve got coffee and snacks if you want anything.”

 

Mikey nodded and walked over. He could feel the carpeted floor through the bottom of his Converse. He knew he needed new shoes, but he didn’t see the point. There was still a part of Mikey’s mind that was poor and living in a shitty part of Jersey. Mikey was rich now, but the poor kid inside him was never going to die. He’d never feel comfortable buying replacements for things until his current item didn’t work at all. He’d never choose some fancy restaurant over grabbing Taco Bell at three AM with Frank.

 

The coffee reminded him of being a kid. Of his mom being so exhausted that she’d put her cigarette out in her mug and make Mikey hand his over. Of walking down to the basement with two mugs and keeping his own near his face so he didn’t have to smell the aftermath of Gee’s bender and depression.

 

Mikey spat the coffee out. He couldn’t swallow that. He didn’t  _ want _ to swallow that. Just because all the remnants of his childhood were tainted with bile didn’t mean he had to swallow them down. Mikey didn’t have to drink this shit coffee in this shit recovery room. He’d bring his own fucking coffee, and he’d sort his shit out on his own. He didn’t need someone else’s definition of recovery. Mikey had his life under control, and it wasn’t his fault that Gee thought he was driving himself into the ground. 

 

Mkey found a seat and dropped down into it. He hunched over, not wanting anyone to try and start a conversation with him. He sent Gee another text, knowing she’d see it even if she didn’t reply. Gee had always been bad at responding. At one point, Mikey had thought that Gee not responding meant that she didn’t care. The opposite was true. Gee cared so much about so many people that she never knew what to say or do. Gee tried to do too much for too many. Mikey kept her updated so that she wouldn’t worry too much, but he didn’t expect conversation. Gee did her conversations in person. Mikey had always done his better over text. 

 

“Well, it’s about time to start this week’s meeting,” the woman from earlier said. She was holding a cup of shitty coffee in her hands. “I see we have a lot of new faces today, so we’ll start by going around and introducing ourselves. Remember: first names only. This is an anonymous group, so let’s respect each other’s privacy.”

 

Mikey rolled his eyes. This was just like out of a movie where the fucked up protagonist was sitting in a tiny room and everyone went around the circle telling their tragic backstories. “I’m Jerry.” “I’m Erica.” “I’m Monique.” “I’m Alex.” “I’m Bradley.” “I’m Alice.” On and on, followed by the echoes of “...and I’m an alcoholic.” Mikey droned it all out, waiting for the person next to him to speak so he wouldn’t get caught off guard. 

 

And then he heard it: “My name’s Spencer, and I’ve been clean for about four months now.”

 

Mikey’s head snapped up. He hadn’t seen Spencer in years. They’d met up once after London, and Mikey barely remembered it. Spencer looked like shit, moreso now than the last time Mikey had seen him. He looked like an alcoholic. He looked tired and hungover and fucked up from an attempt at withdrawal.

 

Spencer and Mikey locked eyes. A flash of fear crossed Spencer’s face, but no one else in the group picked up on it. Just Mikey. He and Spencer were having a silent conversation, both men waiting to see the other’s first move They knew too much about each other. There wasn’t any anonymity left in this room, and now they would both have to tread carefully. There would be no reconnecting, no happy ending. Just silent agreement to avoid, avoid, avoid until it killed them both. 

 

There was no such thing as recovery. Mikey knew that. There was only finding something to bury the truth with, and it looked like Spencer and Mikey had stumbled on the same set of tools.

**Author's Note:**

> PS: yes, I'm doing better now. I'm surrounded by a group of friends who genuinely love and support me and I'm moving forward in my transition and generally taking control of my life to make it better. But depression is still a bitch. 
> 
> As usual, please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed, or if you just wanna talk about how Mikey needs a hug!


End file.
